Friday, April 24, 2009

Quotes: Myth (2)

Myth1281"Pegasus was a snow-white steed, with beautiful silvery wings…was as wild, and as swift, and as buoyant in his flight through the air, as any eagle that ever soared into the clouds…he had never been…bridled by a master…whenever he was seen, up very high above people’s heads, with the sunshine on his silvery wings, you would have thought that he belonged to the sky." “The Chimera” Hawthorne’s The Wonder Book for Boys and Girls

Myth1285 "In those days, the only way for a young man to distinguish himself was by fighting battles, either with the enemies of his country, or with wicked giants, or with troublesome dragons, or with wild beasts, when he could find nothing more dangerous to encounter." “The Chimera” Hawthorne’s The Wonder Book for Boys and Girls

Myth1286"To be sure, a great many people denied that there was any such horse with wings, and said that the stories about him were all poetry and nonsense." “The Chimera” Hawthorne’s The Wonder Book for Boys and Girls

Myth1290 " …Pegasus shot down like a thunder-bolt, as if he meant to dash both himself and his rider headlong against a rock...he went through about a thousand of the wildest caprioles that had ever been performed either by a bird or a horse...skimmed straight forward, and sideways, and backwards." “The Chimera” Hawthorne’s The Wonder Book for Boys and Girls

Myth760 "…'Excalibur motif' in which the plucking of a branch, or the extraction of a sword from a stone, is regarded as a test of prowess, entitling him who performs the feat to a special privilege, e.g., sovereignty." Frazer, The New Golden Bough.